Hi! I’m Giacomo Bassi, a Tam exchange student from Italy. I’m almost eighteen and this is my fourth year of High School but I’m not a senior. I’ll ask you to think for a minute about how hard it is to introduce yourself in a school where the grade defines most of your relationships with friends and adults. That was one of the differences I noticed between my home country and Tam. But soon, I started to appreciate being considered almost a senior among seniors and an old junior among juniors. There are great aspects of Italy but something I don’t like is that high school is in fact five years long and I won’t finish High School until I’m nineteen years old, like any other Italian student.

Yes, you guessed right: Italian High Schools work really differently. First of all, we have six day long week, but a school day in Italy ends between 12pm and 1pm depending on the grade. Class subjects are different than at Tam and they are not up to us to chose. Since Freshman year I have learned about Latin, English, French, and Physics.In addition I took the mandatory classes: Math, Italian, History PE, and Science. Another big difference is that in Italy my classmates and I don’t change classrooms during the day while the teachers do. My one group of classmates doesn’t change throughout all five years. I know it sounds like a horrible kind of school, but trust me it’s usually really fun.

Tam, for me, was a big change, but mostly in a good way. The teachers are much more friendly and helpful than they were in Italy. We talk to teachers in Italy in a weird formal form of “you” and “How are you doing today Mr/Ms teacher?” is not a thing at all in Italy. Probably because of this more friendly and welcoming attitude at Tam, it has been lit (as you guys say) since the beginning. You guys rock!

Even if my accent/language/waterpolo skills sucked I felt welcomed wherever I was. The language at the beginning presented an issue, especially during “fun” classes like AP Literature and AP Calc. By the way if you guys are wondering, AP credits don’t count in Italy and neither does my GPA.

Life at Tam has been actually really fun from the first Rally, when I realized that the stereotypes about Americans are sometimes true, to eating at NY Bagel or at Rocco’s Pizza. At the end of the day, what made my experience were definitely the people I met here. All the foreign students present at Tam have made me feel at home and if you don’t believe me you should come to Levinson’s Tutorial and try to guess how many different nationalities there are in the room.

A thing that I learn at Tam is how inaccurate and funny the memes about Italy are. Let me state for the last time that “Ciao Bella” is not a thing, neither is “Pepperoni Pizza” nor the weird hand motion where you clasp your fingers together. Sorry, we are more boring than you think.

At the end of my year I’ll miss Tam, but thanks to Mr Lapp’s repetitive playing of “The Joker” this experience will always be in my Spotify playlist.

Latest Issue: March 2018

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The Tam News is your source for the latest and most important news dealing with Tam High. The Tam News is a student-run newspaper, and is an open, public forum for student expression. We strongly encourage letters and article contributions.